Hi. I am new to Coffee House having been introduced to it by my friend and music mentor John "Wookiee" Hazel.
With Wookiee's help I have learned some chords and scales on the guitar but soon realised that my forte is (at least in my mind) the writing of lyrics. In this book "Poems & Songs From A Demented Mind" I have set out over 80 of my songs with the idea that readers will interpret them for themselves and add their own chords, rhythms and melodies.
The book is available from www.lulu.com  where when you visit you need to search it by title or by my name (Chris Baylis).
I hope to hear some of these songs interpreted soon on this great website.
Thanks for listening (and hopefully reading)
chris

Welcome to the CH Chris and thanks for sharing your Poems & Songs!! Someone will surely use one of them. Wooks is a local favourite here and no we were not threatened with dismemberment if we didn't say this.
 
If you ever had the inclination to post anything important or of value useless, the FSF is the place to do it (biggest ongoing thread in the CH........you just can't miss it).

Thanks Mesh. 
Much appreciated

Releasing a book of poems is fine, but if you intend to interest people in setting them to music on spec, you may need to provide some kind of licensing process to allow them to do so. In the US and most of the world, setting a poem to music is creating a derivative work of your copyrighted poem. Even making a single recording of a song with your lyrics without clear permission to do so is technically an infringement of your copyright. Although you could just include language in the preface or introduction that essentially says you are welcome to use these poems to make your own songs, it would be hard to do so in such a way that all the ownership issues would be resolved.
 
If someone creates a song that makes money, do they share revenue with you as co-author? If two publishers want to acquire all rights to two different songs with the same lyrics, can you assure them both that they each will have exclusive rights? The possibility that some composer will be unable to do anything with his melody that is the perfect match to your poem may be a disincentive to theoretical collaborators.
 
If you want to give the poems to the world for free, then something like a Creative Commons license might work, but if you wanted to do that I expect you would not be putting a price tag on your eBook. 

That's a good point Slartabartfast. It wasn't published as a money making idea and on the cover I do say that these are just words, you can provide the music. I also put my contact details in the book should anyone want to contact me. I understand what you are saying though as each piece does have (c)CCB next to the title. At the moment it isn't an eBook it's an A5 paperback, the cost on it is to cover printing costs.
The lyrics are free for people to put music to and use as they wish. If I can find out how to put it into eBook format with no costs then I will. I think I have a solution to this and will follow that road and see whether it works or not. The paperback is just an easier way to carry round what is otherwise 200+ sheets of paper.
My hope, I guess, is that someone does like a song or two, does record it/them and gives me the credit as lyricist. Then other musicians may ask me for lyrics to their music. 
Thank you for putting this out in the open, it is something I should have thought of earlier.